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Water nymph

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Posts posted by Water nymph

    Should we run air?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    On 10/29/2021 at 4:38 PM, Flumpweesel said:

    How long are you storing it before use?  And why is the water being stored ?

    Running air may help maintain its o2 content over time but not sure it is necessary depending on time stored and volume changed. 

     

    We have really hard water. We add about RO/DI water to our hard water in our holding container. The RO/DI filters water so slowly that we have to do it ahead of time. Between our 135, 60, and two 10 gallon aquariums the container water gets used/replaced every 2 to 3 weeks.  

    On 10/29/2021 at 5:29 PM, Scapexghost said:

    I would. Helps gas off chlorine.

    Thank you. 🙂

    Nerite snail eggs

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    43 minutes ago, Pigeonduck said:

    Something/s in my community tank eats the nerite eggs but I never notice them doing it. I think that the most likely candidates are the gastromyzon ctenocephalus  the otocinclus and/or the leopard frog plec. 

     

    Thanks! 🙂

    Nerite snail eggs

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    6 hours ago, AquaAggie said:

    @Water nymphi’ve tried asking this question before an never got anywhere. I haven’t been able to catch mine in the act to find the girls but did see someone talking about how they by nerites one at a time and put them in quarantine and watch for eggs before adding to their display tanks. Doesn’t solve the current problem but could minimize it in the future

    That's a great idea! Thanks. 

    • Like 1

    Nerite snail eggs

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    We're not worried about them hatching in our aquarium since we don't have brackish water. It's the white eggs all over the dark colored wood in our tank we don't like. If there is a fish, frog, etc., that could eat the eggs, but leaves the nerite snails alone, it would be great. 🙂

    • Like 1

    Nerite snail eggs

    in General Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Water nymph

    Are there any freshwater aquarium animals that eat nerite snail eggs? Edited to add: We don't have brackish water, so we're not worried about them hatching. It's the white eggs all over the dark wood in our aquarium that's an eyesore. 

     

    What constitutes a planted aquarium?

    in Plants, Algae, and Fertilizers

    Posted

    8 hours ago, FishyThoughts said:

    Not sure if that store charges more for the established media than the new media. But the second round of established media wasn’t really needed. The bacteria is supposed to more or less double each day, providing there’s food for it. So you would have been good with just the first bit of media. 
    Ammonia and nitrite readings are normal starting a tank up. Ideally you won’t really have anymore readings with those two. Then depending on your setup/stocking you may or may not really have much nitrates. But just incase your not... the nitrate #2 fluid has to be shaken very well. If not it will only give a reading of 0. 

    Darn, it's too bad we bought a second bag of media. We started the tank on Dec 17, so I keep expecting to see changes. I won't be so concerned now. Thanks! We are careful when following directions for the API tests.  

    What constitutes a planted aquarium?

    in Plants, Algae, and Fertilizers

    Posted

    9 hours ago, FishyThoughts said:

    This is not an exact accurate method. But will give you some idea of what the tank is doing as far as cycled state. 
    If your wanted to check the state of a planted aquarium you can dump some fish food (more than what the plant can handle) in it. Basically let it rot and test your water. If you see ammonia than the BB isn’t established enough to support much bio load, no ammonia but nitrites would indicate it can support some (around the amount of fish that would eat the food you put in), only nitrates would indicate that the tank is more or less cycled and can support a bio load. 
    If it results in only high nitrates, meaning the tank is cycled, I would recommend a water change to bring it to a manageable level and then wait a day before adding stock to allow it to settle again. 
     

    Like I mentioned, it’s not an guaranteed method. But i have had decent results with making sure there’s sources to create ammonia while I’m cycling a tank. I haven’t had any large spikes of ammonia from adding the livestock and I don’t really spread out adding the fish. 
     

    And like others mentioned getting media from an established tank basically jumpstarts your aquarium. So almost instantly cycled, but it does need some food source to maintain and grow additional BB. 

    Thanks for your reply. This is a brand new 135-gal tank so when we purchased the first plants we purchased a small bag of media from the aquarium shop’s established tanks, and a week later purchased a larger bag of their established media along with more plants.  

    We’ve been doing frequent H2O parameter checks using API master test kit the entire time, and we’ve now started adding fish. All fish have remained healthy. Minnows ate the white fungus on wood. Algae is growing on the tank walls – as expected. We’ve made no water changes yet.
     

    Does the following mean the plants and bacteria are keeping everything in balance?
    Our pH has not changed, at all, since we started the tank - it’s still 7.6.
    Ammonia was 0.25 the first two times we tested, but has remained O-ppm for the last 10 tests.
    Nitrite tested at 0.25ppm the first 2 times, but it’s been O-ppm several times since then.
    We’ve never had a Nitrate positive test since we started the tank. 

     

    What constitutes a planted aquarium?

    in Plants, Algae, and Fertilizers

    Posted

    6 minutes ago, ChefConfit said:

    If you are using plants and media from an established aquarium then your tank was most likely fully cycled when you set it up, but if the there has been no ammonia source(fish poop/uneaten food) to feed the BB it will have begun to die off until it reaches a population level that can be sustained by the available food. The good news is BB populations can double in roughly 24 hours so it shouldn't take long for them to bounce back. 

    You should be good to add fish, but I wouldn't add them all at once. I usually break it up into 4 groups to be added 1 week apart from each other.

    I'd also test even though there most likely not going to be a problem because buying a pack of test strips is way cheaper than buying new fish. 

    Thanks! We'll add fish gradually and test water parameters too.  

    What constitutes a planted aquarium?

    in Plants, Algae, and Fertilizers

    Posted

    3 minutes ago, MattyIce said:

    Specifically as it concerns verifying that the cycle has occurred, correct, you do not have to test, as nothing would show since everything is being eaten by the plants.

    But you still want to make sure that nothing is showing before adding fish even if you see plant growth.

     

    Got it! Thanks so much!!! Our plants started growing soon after planting them. We kept waiting to see changes in the water parameters, but nothing's really changed.  

    • Like 1

    What constitutes a planted aquarium?

    in Plants, Algae, and Fertilizers

    Posted

    3 minutes ago, Daniel said:

    Not saying this is the right thing to do, but what I do when I set up a new aquarium is add plants and water from an existing aquarium and fish all on day 1.

    I don't test to see if the tank is cycled at any point. My assumption is that the tank will reach whatever equilibrium it needs to over time based on what sort of bioload is in the aquarium.

    We like that and would have done the same thing too, but this is our first tank in 7 yrs. We have plants in the tank and we also purchased a bag of media from the local aquarium store. This is media directly from their established aquariums.   

    • Like 1

    What constitutes a planted aquarium?

    in Plants, Algae, and Fertilizers

    Posted

    10 minutes ago, Water nymph said:

    Thanks JettsPapa! Regarding this: ""Maybe someone else addressed this question, but I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by "I wonder if the tank will plant cycle."  Can you please clarify that.""  I know Cory said if plants are growing the tank has probably cycled. Do you also measure ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates to double-check it's cycled?

    Per the video Mattyice posted below, since our plants are indeed growing, my husband and I don't need to worry about testing ammonia/nitrites/nitrates, before we start slowly introducing fish to the aquarium. 

    What constitutes a planted aquarium?

    in Plants, Algae, and Fertilizers

    Posted

    8 minutes ago, JettsPapa said:

    Maybe someone else addressed this question, but I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by "I wonder if the tank will plant cycle."  Can you please clarify that.

    If you haven't started a reply then click on the "Quote" link immediately under a post.  That will start a new reply and insert the quoted message.  If you want to quote multiple messages (like I'm doing), then you can click on another "Quote" link at any time and it will be inserted at your cursor. 

    image.png.3021a5de78483d7fa3b2fc5a7034be1c.png

    Thanks JettsPapa! Regarding this: ""Maybe someone else addressed this question, but I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean by "I wonder if the tank will plant cycle."  Can you please clarify that.""  I know Cory said if plants are growing the tank has probably cycled. Do you also measure ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates to double-check it's cycled?

    What constitutes a planted aquarium?

    in Plants, Algae, and Fertilizers

    Posted

    Hello Everyone, We had fresh/saltwater aquariums for a great many years, but none in the last 7 yrs. We've started a freshwater tank. Regarding plant cycling a new tank, I see photos of super heavily planted aquariums. For cycling purposes what constitutes a planted tank? A certain number of plants per a certain number of water gallons?

    The reason for the questions is that we don’t want to carpet our tank and we don’t want it so heavily planted that we can’t see the hardscaping or fish, thus I wonder if the tank will plant cycle. It’s a 6-foot, 135-gal.

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